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The Cowon D2 begs to be touched

Cowon may be a bit of an underdog in the U.S. market in terms of sales, but boy, this company sure does know how to make a quality MP3 player. I have in my hand the Cowon D2, a solid device dominated by a 2.5-inch screen. I had seen a picture of the player before CES, but it didn't do the D2 justice--the player has such a nice feel to it. The sleek, black body is wrapped in a brushed-metal border, where you can find some tactile controls: a power/hold slider, volume buttons, and a menu … Read more

Mmmm...cell phones

Samsung grabs a piece of the donut, so to speak, with its sponsorship of the Simpsons movie that's set to debut later this year. The company has taken three of its phones and styled them in Simpsons yellow while adding the movie's logo to the front flap.

The Samsung Sync (SGH-a707), the SPH-c417, and the SPH-m610 were chosen as Simpsons special edition phones, and we can only hope that "D'oh!" is available as a ring tone. Stay tuned for availability.

An adapter for all kinds of media

At CES 2007, Zyxel announced the DMA-1000, a digital media adapter for serving up multimedia files from the PCs in your home to your home entertainment system. The small adapter resembles a wireless router and, in fact, supports both wired and wireless connections via Ethernet and 802.11g Wi-Fi. In addition, it offers a USB port so that you can play files from any USB-based storage device, such as a flash thumbdrive or an MP3 player.

The DMA-1000 supports high-def streaming (1080i) and includes an HDMI connector, as well as S-Video. Unfortunately, 802.11g throughput is insufficient for HD streams, … Read more

Eton adds iPod and Sirius for personalized clock radio

Add Eton to the growing list of manufacturers such as iHome and DLO adding iPod to a clock radio so that you can wake up to your own music. But the company has gone one step further and added Sirius satellite radio connectivity to its new Sound 101 AM/FM clock radio. Unfortunately, the iPod doesn't dock on the Sound 101 (April, $150), but jacks in via a separate charging dock, which could be an ungainly arrangement on a small night table. You also have to add your own Sirius receiver.

A second Eton expandable alarm clock, the Sound … Read more

Zune-inspired WinBooks on the way

Putting Ohio State's poor showing last night in the BCS Championship game behind them, Ohio-based Micro Center had a few Vista desktop and laptop prototypes on display at CES. The big news on its PowerSpec desktop line is the addition of a Lian Li chassis for its high-end gaming PCs. The Lian Li chassis is an all-aluminum, tool-free unit that will be used on two highest-end models, the G450 and the G430. Lian Li makes some of the best PC enclosures around, and it should help the PowerSpec name garner some respect among gamers.

Likewise, Micro Center's WinBook … Read more

Samsung shows a new turn on thin phones

At CES Samsung showed off a quirky cell phone that takes "thin" to a whole level. It's not thin from the side like the Motorola Razr, but rather it's exceptionally slim when measured across its front face. The GSM Samsung SGH-X830 measures about an inch wide and sports a swivel form factor in a gallery of colors, including black, green, red and blue. Features are impressive for such a small phone. Inside is a 2-megapixel camera, a digital music player, multiformat video support, 1GB of flash memory, stereo Bluetooth, a 65,536-color display and USB 2.… Read more

Samsung's new credit card phone: spiffy!

When we reviewed the Samsung SGH-P300 last year, we thought it had a perverse appeal. Though it looked like a grade school calculator, its credit card-like dimensions were unique and frankly, pretty cool. Also, its feature set was generous for the phone's size. Now, at CES this year, Samsung is showing the P300's successor that was introduced in the fall, the Samsung SGH-P310.

Fortunately, Samsung managed to make the design a bit more attractive with a black color scheme and a redesigned keypad. We also like the circular-shaped navigation toggle, which beats the square control on the P300 … Read more

Samsung's SGH-T329 heads for T-Mobile

At CES, Samsung is showing an updated model to its earlier SGH-T319 models. The new Samsung SGH-T329 offers much of the same feature set including a VGA camera, a 65,000-color display, a speakerphone, USB cable support and Bluetooth, but fortunately it improves on its predecessor's dull design. The flip phone sports soothing, rounded edges, a gray and silver color scheme, and a vertically oriented external display. The carrier is T-Mobile, but we've no word on pricing or availability yet.

Sony Ericsson's low-key Z310

Sony Ericsson is taking a cue from Kyocera this CES by keeping things simple. Besides its low-end W200i Walkman phone, the company is showing its Z310, which it introduced last month. Bearing a very basic flip phone design with a small external display that disappears when the backlighting is off, the Z310 almost appears to be a Samsung phone from afar. It's available in black, bronze, and pink, and because no carrier has been announced, it will run you a steep $219.

Features are mostly midrange, with a 65,536-color internal display, a VGA camera, text and multimedia messaging, … Read more

Buffalo goes big (and fast) with DriveStation Quattro

Along with the TeraStation Pro II, Buffalo Technology announced its new DriveStation Quattro USB 2.0/eSATA external hard drive at CES 2007. Combining four 7,200rpm drives in 1TB and 2TB configurations, it is capable of data transfer rates of up to 100MB per second, according to Buffalo. The drives can be arranged in RAID 0, RAID 1, and RAID 5 arrays for improved performance and data security. Buffalo also bundles Memeo AutoBackup for Windows. Unlike the TeraStation Pro II, the four drives aren't swappable.

When connecting the Quattro to your Windows or Mac PC, you can use … Read more